1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to display apparatus for displaying various exposure control parameters or exposure values in cameras or exposure meters, and more particularly to a digital display apparatus adapted for use with a digitally operated camera or exposure meter in which photographic information once stored in a digital circuit is displayed in the digital form at a location such as in the viewfinder thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, as electronics develops to ever-increasing extent, increasing proportions of photographic cameras are set to employ digitally operated exposure apparatus in association with digital display apparatus. Even in the case of cameras provided with analog exposure control apparatus, the employment of a digitally operated display apparatus for association with the analog exposure control apparatus is increased in proportion because of the derivation of many advantages in the camera management. The digital exposure control and digital display enable the use of a large-scale integrated circuit so that the apparatus may be compactly constructed even when the digital processing is relatively complicated as is usual in the digital circuit. This characteristic facilitates the incorporation of the apparatus in the housing of a camera or exposure meter, and also the improvement of control accuracy by several grades over that of the analog control. Therefore, the digitally operated exposure control apparatus and digital display apparatus are suitable for use in a superhigh grade camera. With such camera, it is desirable to display the photographic information in the viewfinder thereof and to arrange the digital display in association with indicia which enable the photographer to identify which multidigital number displayed is a factor or result, namely, an exposure control factor or a computed exposure value. This leads to the requirement that the digital readout element assembly of the display apparatus be positioned adjacent the viewfinder optical system of the camera. As the exposure control apparatus is separated and spaced apart from the display apparatus, it has been the prior art practice to provide a large number of signal transmitting channels through which the photographic information is transferred from the exposure control apparatus to the digital display apparatus, thereby giving disadvantages of prejudicing the small, compact and rugged construction of the digital processing system and of limiting the space available for installation of the exposure control apparatus and digital display apparatus in the housing of the camera.
An object of the present invention is to provide a display apparatus which has overcome the above-mentioned conventional drawbacks.
Another object is to simplify the structure of a display apparatus by utilizing one of eight segments of a digital readout element in displaying the symbol which enables the photographer to distinguish a multidigital number representative of the exposure control factor from that representative of the computed result.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which: